Svetlana Baitova

Svetlana Baitova

Personal information
Born	(1972-09-03) 3 September 1972 Mogilev, Soviet Union
Height	1.52 m (5 ft 0 in)
Weight	39 kg (86 lb)
Sport
Sport	Artistic gymnastics
Club	Spartak Mogilev
Medal record Representing the Soviet Union Olympic Games 1988 Seoul Team World championships 1989 Stuttgart Team 1987 Rotterdam Team

Svetlana Nikolayevna Baitova (Belarusian: Святлана Мікалаеўна Баітава; Russian: Светлана Николаевна Баитова; born 3 September 1972) is a retired Belarusian gymnast. She won a gold medal at the 1988 Olympic Games as a member of the Soviet team and finished fourth in the all-around final at the 1987 World Championships.

Career

Baitova competed at the 1988 Summer Olympics and won a gold medal with the Soviet team. Individually, she finished 13th in the team competition but did not qualify for the all-around final (top 36) as she was the fourth ranked Soviet and the limit was three gymnasts per nation. Her best Individual result was seventh on the balance beam, but again she did not advance to the apparatus final (top 8), as she was the third Soviet (two gymnasts per nation was the limit for the apparatus finals). Her other results were ninth (uneven bars), 14th (vault) and 31st (floor). In 1988, she had not yet recovered from a hand fracture she received in 1987. Nevertheless, she was included on the team owing to her strong performance at the Olympic trials.

Baitova won a team silver medal and finished fourth in the all-around final at the 1987 World Championships. She also finished fourth in three of the four event finals; vault, uneven bars and floor exercise. She won a team gold medal the 1989 World Championships;

Eponymous skills

Baitova was one of three gymnasts to successfully perform the double-twisting Yurchenko (DTY) vault at the 1987 World Championships, the first major FIG competition where it was performed. Contradicting naming conventions, the vault is currently named after her in the Code of Points despite the fact that Eugenia Golea and Elena Shushunova did the same vault successfully in the same phase of the same competition. She also has an eponymous balance beam mount.

Apparatus	Name	Description	Difficulty
Vault	Baitova	Round-off flic-flac on - stretched salto backward with 2/1 turn (720°) off	5.0
Balance beam	Baitova	Two flank circles followed by leg "Flair"	D

Retirement

She retired in 1990 and since 1991 works as gymnastics coach in Mogilev. In 1990, she married and gave birth to son Alex, but remarried later. In 2002, she was hired to coach in Qatar on a five-year contract, but returned after 11 months because she could not tolerate the hot climate.

External links

• Svetlana Baitova at Olympedia
• Svetlana Baitova at Olympics.com
• Svetlana Baitova at the National Olympic Committee of the Republic of Belarus